


The Tower

by GarbagePlanet



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Missing Scene, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 23:27:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15784320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GarbagePlanet/pseuds/GarbagePlanet
Summary: Two different things that happen during the investigation at the Stratford Tower that end very much the same.





	The Tower

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure this has been done already a hundred thousand times and much better, but I'll toss this out into the void anyway lol

Watching an android shoot is something Hank hopes he -- and the rest of the world, for that matter -- never has to get used to. Connor _moves_ , blurringly quick, snatching a gun from one of Perkins’s boys in one smooth motion and putting four bullets into the air faster than Hank can blink. Each one of them hits the android in the hallway with perfect precision: one in the shoulder, three in the chest, and the android falls to its knees, eyes rolling back and mouth falling open, the stolen rifle clattering loudly on the ground.

Hank crawls back to his feet, knees still stinging from how hard he hit the deck, helps Miller up, too. Connor is staring at the dead android with a disturbing sense of malice -- at least, that’s the vibe Hank gets -- not even tearing his gaze away long enough look at the wide-eyed FBI agent when he returns the gun.

“Nice shot, Connor,” Hank tells him. It’s hard not to be impressed, even if it’s also pants-shittingly terrifying. Connor narrows his eyes and doesn’t turn to him.

“I wanted it alive.” If Hank didn't know better, he'd swear that sounded genuinely frustrated, or disappointed, or the hundred thousand other fucking things Connor claims androids can fake but not really feel.

Still, Hank feels he should let him know he made the right call, even if he doesn’t think so. “You saved human lives, Connor. You saved _my_ life.”

Connor finally looks away from the dead android to meet his eyes, and...well, “smile” is too kind a word for whatever the hell he tries to do with his face, his mouth twitching and curling awkwardly on one side. Then Connor stumbles, and Hank sees a flash of bright blue.

Panic hits him like a train. “ _Connor!_ ”

Hank scrambles, somehow managing to catch and prop him up by the lapels before he falls to the floor. Hank gives him a quick once over, spots a torn undershirt and a grey and blue _hole in his stomach._ “Shit, Connor, what the fuck happened?”

“The deviant attacked me,” Connor says, his voice sounding strained but still with infuriating, inhuman calm, “My thirium pump regulator must have been damaged when I reinserted it.”

“When you --” Hank blinks. “Wait, your _heart_ got ripped out? And you _put it back in?_ ”

“It’s not a ‘heart,’ Lieutenant,” Connor corrects him, and then his eyes slide unfocused; Hank buckles when he suddenly becomes heavier.

“Help over here!” Hank bellows, barely turning his head -- it’s enough to get people startle and run, but that quickly turns aimless, slowing into confused glances. No one moves to help, or even call an ambulance: Hank is seconds away from rounding on the nearest officer with incredulous fury...before he remembers that an ambulance is going to do exactly jack shit. Connor's LED is flashing, cycling rapidly from yellow to red and back again, an obvious, blinking reminder of what he actually is, and Hank feels incredibly, sinkingly stupid.

“Connor.” Hank gives him a rough shake - it works on his phone, sometimes - and Connor finally gives a long blink and looks at him again. “What do we have to do to fix you? Take you to a Cyberlife store? What?”

“The roof,” Connor says, bafflingly, tries to push himself out of his grip and Hank spots a jagged electric blue line through his hand. “We haven't checked the roof.”

_Un-fucking-believable._

“We're not checking the god damn roof,” Hank snarls, “You're broken, and we're going to fucking fix you, so you tell me where I need to go.”

Connor abruptly stops struggling, staring up at him for a long moment with an odd mix of surprise and what, after peeling back several inscrutable layers, just might be irritation.

“Cyberlife headquarters,” he says, finally, “My biocomponents are specialized and won't be found in a typical Cyberlife store.”

“LT?” asks a voice on his left. It's Chris, and he looks worried when Hank turns to him; he follows Chris’s gaze to glance down at a growing puddle of blue staining his shoes.

Cyberlife HQ is forty minutes away on a good day, with automated traffic. At the rate he's bleeding out ( _leaking?_ ), it doesn't look like Connor has anything near that.

“Can you drive?” Hank asks quickly; Chris gives a reluctant nod and Hank fishes in his pocket to toss over his keys. “We’re going to Cyberlife, and you’re gonna floor it. I’ll get him in the car.”

Connor’s heavy for plastic and whatever else he’s made out of, but still lighter than a human; it’s not too hard for Hank to drape an arm over his shoulders to prop him up and practically drag him around on unsteady legs.

“What the hell were you gonna do?” Hank hisses at him and Connor blearily looks up in surprise. “ _Crawl_ to the fucking roof?”

“No,” he says, sounding mildly offended. He turns, looking wistfully up at the top of the building as Hank stuffs him in the backseat, but he doesn’t -- _Thank God_ \-- say anything else about getting there. The engine doesn’t turn over until Hank shows Chris how to do it properly, but they’re off fast enough, barreling past the worst of city traffic.

“Okay,” Hank says, raking a hand through his hair and ignoring a series of blaring horns and a sudden, erratic swerve, “there anything we have to worry about before we get you there?”

Connor’s eyes flit to the windshield, and then, apparently thinking better of it, he looks back at Hank. “Loss of a significant amount of thirium may critically impair my cognitive and speech functions.”

“Great, so, meaning what? You're gonna get loopy?”

“' _Loopy_.’” Hank can practically hear the way he rolls the unfamiliar word around on his tongue. There's the briefest of pauses as Connor apparently verifies the intended definition. “Yes, I may become incoherent, but I’m incapable of becoming delusional, as --”

“Yeah, you're a machine, Connor, I know.” Hank stares at the spot where Connor's skin comes to a stop, turning into an inhuman mix of soft grey and bone white oozing electric blue. Disturbing doesn't even begin to cover it. “Christ, none of that hurts?”

“Androids don’t feel pain, Lieutenant.” Connor gives him an odd look. “You know that.”

He does know that. He's not exactly sure why he asked. Hank scowls and throws a dismissive wave in Connor's direction.

“Just testing you,” he lies, and poorly, Chris glances up at him, frowning, in the rearview window, and almost runs them head-on into a van, “because I’m not sure how the hell I’m supposed to tell if you start losing it if you say stupid shit all the time anyway.”

Connor merely blinks at him, but Chris snorts. “You’ve got a real great bedside manner, LT.”

“Yeah, yeah. Keep your eyes on the goddamn road, smartass.”

“What should I tell security when I get there?” Chris says, turning for a moment to look at Connor in fully conscious direct fucking opposition to what Hank just told him.

“You can inform them I was damaged and am in need of repairs,” Connor says, his voice suddenly and erratically changing in volume, surprising all three of them. It sounds like he's got bad cell reception, except he's right there. “They’ll recognize my serial number.”

The weirdness of Connor’s voice adds to Hank’s odd feeling of jumpiness, amped up with nowhere to put it. Everything just seems _wrong_ \-- Connor should be screaming, or terrified, or _something_. Instead, he’s just...sitting there, in a car easily going forty miles over the speed limit, like dying would do nothing other than put a mild damper on his day, passively waiting to arrive at a place that could potentially save him.

Connor made a bigger fuss about not going up to the roof than the possibility of his own death, and that scares Hank far more than laying down perfectly precise gunfire, or running endlessly in the pursuit of a target without a hint of exhaustion, or stuffing blood samples into his goddamn mouth.

He realizes, too late, that Connor is staring at him.

“What?” he snaps, harsher than he means to, honestly.

“You can apply pressure,” Connor suggests helpfully, “That will slow the thirium leak.”

That sounds easy enough, and gives him something to fucking do other than think about how Chris is going to get all three of them killed. Hank wads up the tattered remains of a towel he’s used a handful of times in vain attempts to prevent Sumo fur from getting all over his backseat, and presses it against Connor's stomach.

And then, all at once, it isn't easy at all.

It’s too close to kneeling in snow on the side of the road, too close to the world breaking apart, too close to trying to hold Cole together with nothing but his hands. They start shaking, now, and Connor notices.

“Lieutenant?” His voice sounds oddly tinny, edged with static, thick with concern.

“Shut up,” Hank barks, and Connor, for once, does as asked. He presses the towel down harder and a sharp smell fills his nostrils, ozone and antifreeze mixed together, as the blue blood soaks through. Then Connor looks like he’s about to say something anyway, but his stupid light starts blinking, and then his face slides into a completely neutral expression, smoothly erasing any sign of worry, his eyes clouded and unfocused.

"Connor, you still with us?” Chris asks. The Cyberlife tower looms in front of them, growing larger every second; Chris risks a quick, worried glance and Hank can’t muster up the will to tell him to watch the goddamn road.

Connor doesn’t answer. Instead, he stares down at the wadded towel in mild surprise.

“I was damaged,” he says, slow and calm and terrifyingly artificial. He looks up at Hank. “Did you damage me?”

That hurts, for some fucking reason, though it’s a perfectly logical conclusion based on what happened just last night. And Connor’s first day in the office. And when they first met.

“No, wasn’t me.” Hank forces a smile. “You couldn’t wait five more minutes to lose it, eh Connor?”

Connor doesn’t reply. He isn’t blinking anymore, either, nor is there the artificial rise and fall of his chest. His LED is a broken yellow now, spinning slowly, and Hank, unbidden, remembers stumbling out of mangled metal, the cold asphalt biting into his knees, the mist of Cole’s labored, shuddering breaths, the wild terror in his eyes.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he says, without knowing why. It comes out hoarse.

“I called for you,” Connor blurts, weakly, the static in his voice much thicker now, the words barely comprehensible. His face animates again, though it's jerky and broken, shifts into something confused and hurt and Hank _knows better_ but his stomach twists and sinks all the same. “I called for you, but you didn't come.”

“I didn't hear you.” Hank tries to swallow over the thick lump lodged in his throat. “I would've -- you know I would've helped you if I heard you, Cole.”

_Fuck._

The first thing he feels is numb, once he realizes what the hell just slipped out of his mouth. Then his guts chill, like swallowing a block of ice, and then they burn, as quick as if he cut himself open and threw a match inside, and Hank immediately wants to crawl away into a hole to die.

He didn’t mean to -- he _really_ didn’t mean to -- but there it was.

He watches, mortified, as Connor tilts his head, frowning in puzzlement -- but then his eyes close and his entire body goes slack, a puppet with cut strings.

“Connor! _”_ Hank tries shaking him again, the light on his temple bright red and blinking wildly. _“Fuck!”_

“We’re here, Lieutenant,” Chris says, trying and failing to sound like he didn’t hear what just fucking happened.

Cyberlife security looks more kitted out than a goddamn army, but they accept both police badges and Connor’s serial number, wave them on through. There’s several androids and a few staff members waiting for them when they finally pull up alongside the building. None of them look worried.

“His thirium pump,” Hank says quickly, stupidly, like he knows what the hell he’s talking about. He's shuffling as fast as he can towards the entrance, trying to prop up Connor the same way they got him into the car, Chris on the other side. “He just stopped moving in the car when we --”

The staff ignore him with thin smiles that don't reach their eyes. An android simply plucks Connor away from him, leading the way as they all start to move back inside the building, and Hank can only stare.

“Wait,” Chris says, because Hank can’t form words, for some reason, “He's on loan to the Detroit Police Department for the deviant investigation. When's he due back?”

“It will depend on the extent of the needed repairs, of course,” answers an older woman with short grey hair, stopping right before she reaches the door. Her voice is smooth and not at all reassuring. “Hopefully, a replacement won't be necessary.”

 _Replacement_ prickles the hairs on the back of Hank's neck, but she continues before he can manage to say anything. “You're welcome to wait inside, officers. Otherwise, we'll contact you once the repair work is done.”

“I'll wait for him,” Hank says, too fast, turning to Chris, and holding out a hand for his keys, “Get yourself a ride home.”

Chris hesitates, extends the keys only halfway. “Hank,” he says, but his eyes go to the pavement, and he doesn't say anything else.

“What the fuck is it?” he snaps, and _Christ,_ he needs a drink.

“You just…” Chris heaves a quick, worried sigh, rubbing the back of his neck as he hands back the keys. “You're okay?”

“Yeah,” Hank tells him, and it's almost true, “I'm fine.”

 

* * *

 

He waits for about half an hour in the too-nice, pristine Cyberlife foyer before _replacement_ starts gnawing at him enough to make him feel slightly nauseous, and then he makes enough of a fuss at one of the android secretaries that they let him see where they took Connor. He has to find his own chair to sit in, which he borrows from a conference room down the hall and doesn’t intend to put back, but it's a relief -- more than it should be -- to have eyes on him.

 

Cyberlife isn't a hospital, and Connor isn't human, but it's still a shock to see him just standing there inside some machine, one of at least a dozen in the enormous room. Connor's eyes are closed, his head lolled to one side, unnaturally, disturbingly still, held aloft by a cruel looking arm plugged into the base of his spine. He's not in his suit, either, shirtless and barefoot in nothing more than a thin, cheap pair of shorts. Hank’s surprised they even bothered to keep his skin on, save for the spot between a seam on his collarbone where they shoved a thick tube. A long cylinder of thirium is attached to the other end, slowly pumping the blue blood back into Connor. His LED is yellow, spinning slowly, and he looks pathetic and awful and nothing like the guy who put four bullets into an android armed with an assault rifle just hours ago.

He looks like a _thing._

What a fucking hypocrite he is. He’d been absolutely ready to put a bullet right between Connor’s eyes just the night before, ready to sneer at whatever bullshit excuse prevented those two Tracis from being captured and tormented further or shot right there in the rain. Because shooting Connor was just the same as breaking a _thing_ he didn’t want and certainly didn’t fucking need, a way of telling Fowler and Cyberlife both to fuck right off and shove the bill for property damage right up their collective ass.

But there weren’t any excuses, just confusion, a vague sentiment Connor believed he had, perhaps, done something _wrong_ . And Hank hadn’t told _anyone_ about how much he hated being alive, not the department ordered shrink, or Fowler, or Chris, content as hell to stew in his own lonely misery. But he had told Connor, when all Connor had done was ask -- not like he was a puzzle to be solved, but out of something that felt like real concern.

Concern that was faked, according to Connor's own words, or concern Hank put there himself. He'd been drunk; either could've been true. Or both.

And now he was calling Connor Cole.

Hank pushes out a rough sigh, watches the LED on Connor's temple spin. He hates that fucking thing more than anything else about androids, a stark reminder that no matter how they looked, how friendly they acted, none of it was real at all. And that was the point of it, really, all of it. Get as close as you can to a human being, and then stamp a brand on it to make sure --

“Lieutenant?”

“Jesus Christ!” Hank nearly startles out of his chair, staring up at an abruptly conscious Connor. “Shit, don’t you have some kind of -- of start-up noise, or something?”

Connor blinks at him. “No.” He takes a moment to look around the room, his LED spinning from yellow to blue. “This is Cyberlife headquarters.”

“Yeah.” Hearing him talk again makes the tension in his shoulders start to fade. “Your thirium pump was damaged, or something. We had to take you here to get you fixed. You remember?”

“I remember.”

Hank swallows, hard. Might as well get out in front of it. There wasn’t anything else to do. “Uh, so about what I said...in the car.”

Connor quirks his head to the right. “You’ve told me to ‘shut up’ many times previously, Lieutenant, and it was a highly stressful situation. I haven’t taken it personally.”

Well, at least he didn’t take it --

Wait a minute.

Hank wrinkles his brow. “Wait, what the hell are you talking about?”

“‘Shut up,’” Connor repeats, primly, “That’s the last thing you said to me before I temporarily deactivated.”

“Right.” The word comes out garbled and half choked because the relief is thick enough to kill him. “Right. You don’t, uh, remember anything else?”

“No. Why?” Connor looks genuinely curious. “Did something else happen?”

“No,” Hank says immediately, “Nothing else happened.”

Connor doesn’t seem to believe that in the slightest, but a group of Cyberlife technicians swarm into the room before he can ask anything else, and Hank steps out to give him some privacy. A few minutes later, Connor re-emerges, fixing his tie, looking no worse for wear.

“We won’t be able to go back to the roof,” Connor tells him plaintively, making Hank immediately regret feeling anything near gratitude for Connor remaining in one piece, “The FBI are denying the DPD access to the Stratford Tower.”

Hank rolls his eyes. “A real tragedy for all involved.” Then he pauses, shuffling his feet.

“Well, glad you’re back, anyway,” he grates out, because he has to say _something_.

Connor looks up at him and does that thing again, where it looks like he’s trying to smile but has no idea how to get his mouth the right shape.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he says, and even if he doesn’t think so, Hank decides he really means it.


End file.
